It's been awhile since I shared the colors and steps used to create a painting, so let's do it. I end this blog post on the architecture.The Paints (pigment codes):I used lavender/violet-yellow complements to create this painting. Complements tend to attract my eye and this particular set of colors conveys a happy feeling to a finished painting. The cool lavender and violet colors were used for the shadowed side of the building, while yellows were used in areas more brightly lit by the sun.

I prefer to work with paints that have a single pigment in them. It is easier to avoid dull, lusterless colors, which watercolor painters call "mud". This small set of pigments allows me to create a pretty wide range of colors. You might not expect the green in the evergreen trees to be created from the same pigments used in the buildings, but they are.

To make the building and trees feel like they belonged to the same paintings, I included some of these same greens in the shadow areas of the building and in the dark window panes.I also added violet colors into tree highlights. Artists call this "bouncing the colors" to create color harmony.A few of the stepsIn this section I'm featuring the windows in the foreground because I think they work well to illustrate the gradual layering to build color in the architectural details.

Palest colors on left windows and begining of darks on 3rd

Initially my goal was to establish the pale colors in the lighter areas of the window. This includes the whites and yellow of the scroll work and the pinks in the lattice work in the windows. The left two windows show the first layer of color. In the window on the right, I added darks to see how the lattice in the windows worked once the darks were added. This is typical in my work. Shifting back and forth between painting lights and darks makes sure the value range is right.

Light grays in scroll work on 1st and 3rd windows

This second photo shows the gray shadows in the upper scroll work in the far left window. You can see I was working quite gradually on the scroll work making sure the shapes were accurate. The window on the right has the darkest darks added to the scroll work, giving a nice 3-D effect. The windows all have their first layer of dark allowing a lot of the pastel colors to show through.

Darks on All Windows

In this photo, the darks in the scroll work are done, but the darks in the windows need to get darker before the painting is finished. I stopped working on these windows here until the painting was nearly complete so I can compare them with my darkest darks in the painting.

Close-up of finished windows.

After finishing all the spires, the windows in the distant building, and the tree, I decided the window panes in the front needed to be darker and more neutral in color. The earlier shade was more blue/violet. I added the dark colors from the tree to the darkest areas of these windows. The green neutralized the violet and also helped integrate the green into the building, albeit in a subtle way. I hope this explanation helps. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in a comment below. The ArchitectureHere is an excerpt from section on Pinnacles on the Washington National Cathedral website https://cathedral.org/what-to-see/exterior/pinnacles/

A pinnacle is
an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or
small turret, but afterward used on parapets at the corners of towers and in
many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. In addition to
adding to the loftiness and verticality of the structure, the pinnacles are
very heavy and enable the flying buttresses to counteract the weight of the
vaulted ceiling and roof. By adding compressive stress (a result of the
pinnacle weight), the building’s load is shifted downward rather than sideways.

Finials are the topmost portion of a pinnacle, often
sculpted as a leaf-like ornament with an upright stem and a cluster of
crockets. Crockets are projected pieces of carved stone that decorate the
sloping ridges of pinnacles. The carved shapes of these elements help move
rainwater down while keeping the water from the roof or walls.

The website article goes on to discuss the damage from the 2011 earthquake on the East Coast and reconstruction efforts.

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Favorite Quotes

"Time spent in a painting is very much like going there again on vacation. And when the painting is done, I have seen every detail and nuance so thoroughly, that a glance at the completed work is sufficient for a short visit." (John Burk)

"The secret of great art - to rob the moment of its impermanence." (Ivan Lissner)

"If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint , then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced." (Vincent van Gogh)

"Rejection leads to persistence, and persistence is what it is all about." (Maria Scrivan)

"Many of life' failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." (Thomas A. Edison)

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." (Michelangelo)

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down "happy". They told me I didn't understand the assignment. I told them they didn't understand life." (John Lennon)

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, ... Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” (Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It)

“All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.” (Marc Chagall)